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Atkinson, Paul
Do it yourself: democracy and design
Original Citation
Atkinson, Paul (2006) Do it yourself: democracy and design. Journal of design history, 19 (1). pp.
1-10. ISSN 1741-7279
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Journal of Design History Vol. 19 No. 1 doi:10.1093/jdh/epk001
© The Author [2006]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Design History Society. All rights reserved. 1
Do It Yourself: Democracy and
Design
Paul Atkinson
means that in an attempt to create any kind of
meta-discourse on the subject, it is likely that the
same key texts will be referenced. Although covering
many disparate aspects of DIY, the articles in this
issue frequently cite key works by authors such as
Attfield, Gelber, Goldstein and Sparke.
1
These
authors have taken different stances on DIY (as a craft
activity, as a pastime, as a fi nancial necessity, as a
lifestyle choice) and analysed it as a social and
cultural phenomenon and from economic, ideolog-
ical and feminist perspectives.
No accounts have really developed the key issue of
how DIY acts as the antithesis of the prescribed design
of the mass marketplace — a democratizing agency
allowing people, paradoxically, to react against the
principles and edicts of design connoisseurship whilst
simultaneously enabling the emulation of those above
them in social hierarchies. Yet, DIY has arguably
acted as a leveller of class, overcoming the social
stigma of manual labour out of sheer necessity, and
permitting the working classes to engage in leisure
activities from which they were previously excluded.
It has acted as a social force in reinforcing competitive
displays of conspicuous consumption (as the middle
classes held dinner parties to show off the results of
their DIY labours),
2
and as a political force by facili-
tating the wider dissemination of subcultural views
through self-publishing. This special issue attempts
to broaden the existing work in the area by taking
this aspect of design democracy as its unifying theme,
and thereby expanding the notion of DIY from the
narrow perspective from which it is often viewed.
DIY — a problem of defi nition
It is possible that the reason DIY has not been exam-
ined in published studies as much as it might have
been is a function of the uncertainty as to where
Introduction
The theme of this special issue arose from a perceived
need to generate a discourse around the interface
between ‘ design ’ taken as a function of the activity
of ‘ professional ’ designers and being part of an
established cycle of the design, production and con-
sumption of goods; and ‘ Do It Yourself ’ taken as its
antithesis — a more democratic design process of self-
driven, self-directed amateur design and production
activity carried out more closely to the end user of
the goods created. Historically, productive and cre-
ative activities of this kind have allowed consumers to
engage actively with design and the design process at
a number of levels, and to express a more individual
aesthetic unbounded by the strictures of mass-
production and passive consumption. The agencies
that have mediated this interface between design and
DIY (the advice leafl ets, manuals and guide books,
exposition and retail catalogues, newspaper reports
and magazines and later, radio and television pro-
grammes) are of particular interest here. They are
often the only evidence of what, for many, has been
a significant element of the fabric of their every-
day life — the results of the activity itself, owing to
their individual and personal nature, often disappear-
ing without trace with the passing of time.
It is not the aim of this Introduction, or even of
this special issue, to give a comprehensive account of
the history and development of Do It Yourself activ-
ity per se . To achieve such an aim would take far more
space than is available here. There remains, however,
a need to expand the existing canon of works, as rela-
tively little has been written on the subject of DIY
from a design historical perspective. With the excep-
tion of a few key texts and collections of conference
papers, DIY as a design activity has not been the focus
of a great deal of attention. This dearth of material
Paul Atkinson
2
exactly it fi ts in the discourses of art, design or craft.
The boundaries between these terms in a design his-
torical context have been explored recently, with a
special issue of this journal focused on these matters,
3
or in texts such as Paul Greenhalgh’s contribution to
The Culture of Craft ‘ The crafts have not been well
served by historians for much of the twentieth cen-
tury … the fundamental problem with the word is
that it is being used to collectively describe genres and
ideas that formerly were not grouped together and
that grew from quite separate circumstances ’ .
4
Greenhalgh goes on to comment on the profusion
of interpretations of ‘ design ’ , ‘ art ’ and ‘ craft ’ , and in
particular of the term ‘ craftsman ’ , described by
Johnson in 1773 as ‘ an artifi cer, manufacturer, a me -
chanick ’ .
5
The distinctions between various aspects
of DIY are similarly unclear. Where are the bound-
aries to be drawn between different levels of activ -
ity ranging from handicrafts to home maintenance,
interior decorating, interior design, garden design,
vehicle maintenance and customization, home
improvement and self-build homes? As a result of
this blurring of boundaries, it is not clear exactly
what constitutes DIY, and consequently it is hard
to say when DIY began.
One widely received view of DIY (and one that
this issue is keen to expand) is that it is a phenome-
non produced by a specifi c set of historical circum-
stances, i.e. DIY fi rst occurred during the 1950s as a
reaction to a post-war shortage of labour. That was
the view taken, for example, by ‘All Mod Cons’ , one
of the only popular television programmes attempt-
ing to construct a history of DIY in Britain, which
began by explaining that over the past 50 years there
has been an epidemic of home improvement, and
stating ‘ It all started in the 1950s ’ .
6
This view of
DIY makes sense from only one particular stand-
point, which sees DIY as a mass-marketed phenom-
enon of home maintenance and improvement
popularized through a variety of media, and brought
about by socio-economic developments which saw
a signifi cant move from rented accommodation to
home ownership. Accepting only this defi nition of
DIY negates a whole series of developments prior
to the Second World War when similar conditions
of labour shortages and lack of money brought about
similar social behaviours in home maintenance.
The situation becomes far more problematic if the
defi nition of DIY is taken outside this narrow view
of home maintenance to encompass other activities
such as handcrafts or hobbies.
For the purposes of this special issue, then, DIY is
taken as covering a wide range of activities which
are carried out for a variety of reasons, and consist
of different levels of creative design input. Looking
more closely at this range of activities, it is actually
quite diffi cult to see them as completely disparate
endeavours. They appear instead to be a series of
overlapping activities having varying proportions of
creative input and a variety of motivations for
un dertaking them.
For example, the various activities referred to in
this Introduction and the accompanying articles could
be split into two distinct areas which might be labelled
‘ the making of objects ’ and ‘ maintenance of the
home ’ . The former would include handcrafts, knit-
ting, the making or altering of clothes, soft furnish-
ings, the building of furniture, boat building and
self-publishing. The latter would include decorating,
plumbing, electrical work, gardening and landscaping
and building work — up to the building of extensions,
shelters and self-build homes. Depending on the level
of skill of the person carrying out any of these activi-
ties there might be different levels of creativity
involved, and depending on their fi nancial circum-
stances or the particular social and economic condi-
tions of the time, they might be carried out either for
personally fulfi lling reasons or because there is no
viable alternative. A good example here would be the
making or altering of clothes, which might range
from the following of a set of instructions carried out
by mothers during wartime as a fi nancial necessity, to
the creative customization of clothes carried out by
young people today as part of the creation and display
of their self-identity. Likewise, the making of furni-
ture might range from the origination of a design,
the purchase of raw materials and their skilled manip-
ulation into a fi nished piece, to the purchase of
a fl at-pack piece of furniture requiring only the fol-
lowing of simple assembly instructions.
It is clear that any attempt to categorize DIY activ-
ity will face these sometimes contradictory elements
of need versus desire and creativity versus assemblage.
As the issue of democracy and freedom of will to act
is a key concern here, however, it would seem to
make more sense in this case to consider the motiva-
tion to carry out such activities as being the organ-
izing or defi ning principle with which to analyse
Do It Yourself: Democracy and Design
3
different aspects of Do It Yourself. I would propose
that the list of activities described above could use-
fully be categorized into at least four distinct areas
(although these too might have considerable areas of
overlap within them).
Pro-active DIY — consisting of those activities
which contain signifi cant elements of self-directed,
creative design input, and which might involve the
skilled manipulation of raw materials or original com-
bination of existing components, where the motiva-
tion is personal pleasure or fi nancial gain.
Reactive DIY — consisting of hobby and handcraft
or building activities mediated through the agency of
kits, templates or patterns and involving the assembly
of predetermined components, where the motivation
might range from the occupation of spare time to
personal pleasure (but which might consequently
include an element of fi nancial gain).
Essential DIY — consisting of home maintenance
activities carried out as an economic necessity or
because of the unavailability of professional labour,
and which often involve the following of instruc-
tional advice from manuals (yet which does not rule
out the possibility that such activities may also be cre-
ative and personally rewarding).
Lifestyle DIY — consisting of home improvement
or building activities undertaken as emulation or con-
spicuous consumption, and where the use of one’s
own labour is by choice rather than need (although
professional input, usually in the form of design
advice, is often included).
The articles selected for this special issue deliber-
ately take a catholic view of DIY — Clive Edwards’
article on women’s handicrafts and Fiona Hackney’s
analysis of home crafts in women’s magazines in
Britain contrast sharply with Sarah Lichtman’s history
of home fallout shelters in America. Andrew Jackson’s
article addresses the role of DIY boat building in the
opening up of elitist leisure pursuits, and has parallels
with Teal Triggs’ article on the role of self-publishing
in the subversion of mainstream publishing. The dif-
fi culties of categorizing DIY activity are evident in all
these articles, if related to the framework set out
above. Edwards’ and Hackney’s discussions cover
handicrafts, home crafts and consumer crafts with
differing amounts of creative input and resulting in
differing amounts of self-expression, and there -
fore fluctuate between proactive and reactive
DIY, although even if the items created were reactive,
they almost certainly contributed to the proactive
creation of a home or lifestyle. Lichtman’s article
describes shelters built following a set of instructions
as well as those assembled from a kit of parts, and
could therefore largely be described as reactive, yet
the particular social circumstances driving their
building might be considered as making them, at least
partially, essential DIY. The building of the Mirror
dinghy described by Jackson could be considered
reactive DIY in that it usually involved the purchase
of a kit and the following of a set of instructions (yet
requiring a considerable amount of skill), although
the drive to do so was clearly tied up with issues of
emulation and conspicuous consumption, which
would categorize it as lifestyle DIY. Conversely, the
creation of fanzines described by Triggs is quite clearly
proactive DIY.
Although, as stated, there is not the intention to
create a comprehensive account of DIY, it might be
considered useful at this point to present some of
the key aspects of the history of DIY that have a bear-
ing on the issue of democracy and design.
DIY — a brief overview
The origins of DIY as a hobby have been stated in
many sources to have arisen from a perceived need to
give idle hands something to do, and provide a pro-
ductive and morally uplifting way of utilizing spare
time. As Edwards highlights, this aspect has clearly
been in evidence since the eighteenth century; the
American author Steven M. Gelber points, however,
to ‘ the industrially induced bifurcation of work and
leisure ’
7
at the end of the nineteenth century as one
of the main reasons that hobbies and handicrafts took
hold, stating that ‘ the ideology of the workplace infi l-
trated the home in the form of productive leisure ’
.8
Gelber describes a change in the perception of
hobbies at this time from their being an ‘ obsessive
preoccupation ’ to being ‘ wholesome activities, most
of which involved solitary productive activity that
took place at home ’
.9
Essential DIY
Although, for some, the popularity of handicrafts and
consequently DIY might have arisen from a desire to
fi ll spare time productively, for the Victorian and
Edwardian working classes, DIY was clearly a neces-
sity rather than a leisure pursuit. It has been argued
Paul Atkinson
4
that the necessary skills and resourceful approaches to
DIY activity have been more developed in certain
generations than others. For example, the relatively
large proportion of children in the UK population
during Victorian and Edwardian periods
10
meant one
focus of DIY was the making of toys. As James Walvin
discussed, even though certain manufacturers
produced ‘ Bristol ’ toys for the children of the poor
retailing at one penny, thousands of children had to
rely upon their own inventiveness in producing
toys and equipment for street games.
11
Following the First World War, DIY became a
necessity not only for the British working classes, but
also for those of the middle classes who suddenly
found themselves in impoverished circumstances.
Evidently, to avoid social stigma, the perception of
DIY had to change. An article in The Times news-
paper in 1920 bore the title ‘ The New Poor — Making
the Best of It ’ , and brought the plight of this new
social group to light:
… the fear of social ostracism need not prevent the impov-
erished well-bred from following that excellent advice
which was placarded at the Ideal Homes Exhibition:- Do it
yourself and save money … . Last of all sacrifi ces, that leisure
which we are now taught to think part of every human
being’s birthright may be lost to those who can no longer
afford to pay others for their services in home or offi ce,
farm or garden … . Can the new poor effectively show to
the world that man’s life is not measured by possession?
Their economy, like charity, must begin at home.
12
The Ideal Homes Exhibition had been in existence
since 1908, and was just one of the promoters of DIY
between the wars. The fi rst ‘ name ’ to be attached
to DIY as a popular pursuit was W. P. Matthew, who
brought the subject to the attention of the masses
through writing books and presenting BBC radio
broadcasts during the 1930s, before DIY became a
serious national concern. The British self-help move-
ment during the Second World War is perhaps one of
the best documented areas of DIY activity, which
involved a whole nation in a government-approved
patriotic drive to preserve precious resources. ‘ Mrs
Sew and Sew ’ and ‘ Dig for Victory ’ were just two
examples of memorable images urging people to
‘ Make Do and Mend ’ , making clothes last longer by
repairing them, making new clothes out of old, and
eking out meagre rations of food by replacing mani-
cured lawns with vegetable patches. Even fashion-led
magazines during the war promoted such thriftiness
by reminding readers that by making do with existing
clothes, labour was freed up for the war effort.
13
As
well as being a fi nancial necessity, doing it oneself was
presented as an expected and respected social attitude
(although some testimonies report that cheap labour
before the Second World War had made DIY un -
acceptable once more to the middle classes)
.14
It seems clear, then, that the skills necessary to
perform DIY became highly valued during such
periods where much work needed to be done and lit-
tle money was available to pay for professional help.
The lack of skilled labour available during the period
of reconstruction following the Second World War
also gave an altruistic reason for much Do It Yourself
work, as described in a 1946 DIY guide book: ‘ Why
not help others? … The less that skilled labour has to
be called in to do jobs which can be done by people
themselves the more of that labour will be available to
build and fi nish the millions of homes that are needed
throughout the country ’
.15
The resourceful people
produced by such diffi cult times provided a ready
market for the growth of DIY. Carolyn Goldstein
commented on this phenomenon in the USA, where
DIY became perhaps less of a necessity and more
about social aspiration: ‘ World War II and its social
and economic legacy accelerated the growth of the
emerging home-improvement infrastructure and
launched a widespread do-it-yourself craze in the
United States. The war provided men and women
with technical skills, confi dence, and a predisposition
toward using their resourcefulness to realize their
dreams of domestic living ’
.16
Goldstein goes on to discuss how, as in Britain,
propaganda campaigns throughout the war had urged
Americans to conserve resources, and ‘ Make it do ’ by
maintaining their houses properly, while at the same
time promoting DIY activity as a means of partaking
in an improved life to come, following the war.
Lifestyle DIY
The post-war ‘ epidemic of home improvement ’
alluded to earlier was fuelled by mainstream promo-
tion in a variety of media. In Britain, radio programmes
such as ‘ Woman’s Hour ’ , started in 1946, gave advice
on ‘ homemaking, make do and mend, recycling of
products and tips for women to save money ’ .
17
The
large-scale take up of television after 1952 provided
the vehicle to bring DIY to an even wider audience.
As Jackson relates, it was W. P. Matthews, the radio
Do It Yourself: Democracy and Design
5
presenter, who fi rst appeared in a commercial televi-
sion programme on DIY, before the appearance of
the widely popular Barry Bucknell. Further promo-
tion of DIY at this point came through the launch of
new popular magazines from the mid 1950s onwards,
including Practical Householder and Do It Yourself. As
‘All Mod Cons’ had it, the movement was so popular
by this time that it was almost a cult ‘ and Barry
Bucknell was its guru ’ .
18
Goldstein’s view of the post-
war promotion of DIY in the USA points to the
notion of ‘ the suburban ideal ’ and the building boom
backed by the GI Bill of Rights to provide a greater
level of home ownership for returning soldiers as pro-
viding the context for DIY as a mass cultural phe-
nomenon. As in the UK, this was widely publicized
through magazines such as Popular Mechanics and
Family Handyman.
Part of the sustained growth of DIY as a leisure
activity from the 1960s onwards may be attributable,
at least in part, to a gradual de-skilling of the processes
involved, reducing much of Do It Yourself to a case of
self assembly and fi nishing. Consider, for example, the
different processes expected to be tackled and skills
expected to be possessed by a competent DIY practi-
tioner as described in the 1935 book The Practical Man’s
Book of Things to Make and Do . These included activi-
ties ranging from wood turning, veneering and fi nish-
ing to ‘ Practical Notes on Building a House ’ ; electrical
work from ‘ Making and Fitting a Burglar Alarm ’ to
constructing a radio; and small jobs ranging from boot
and shoe repairs to clock cleaning. In a separate section
on ‘ Handicrafts for the Handyman ’ , advice is given on
pottery, cardboard work, and ‘ Papier Mâché and
Cement Work ’ .
19
In short, it is a list of activities that
lack of time alone is likely to prevent many people
from undertaking today. Manufacturers and retail
chains alike have worked to develop and promote eas-
ier methods of producing the results which once
required so much dedicated input through new mate-
rials and kits of parts, which to some extent can be
regarded as removing a previously desired element of
individuality. As Hackney’s article references, in the
book ‘ Women and Craft ’ , Pen Dalton wrote ‘ the
encouraging of dependence on projects from women’s
magazines, patterns and pre-designed kits, however
well designed and demanding of the patience and skill
of the housewife, has had a standardising and largely
detrimental effect on craft practice ’ .
20
The reasons for
such a development are complex and the result of a
number of interrelated factors, economic and social.
The simplifi cation and commodifi cation of skills can
indeed be seen in any number of facets of life today,
and is an attitude, it has been argued, arising from the
1950s rise in consumerism:
this is the generation of Moms who embraced myriad use-
less household appliances, canned and frozen foods, ready-
to-wear clothes, and mass-produced decor; consequently,
this is the generation of Moms whose daughters and sons
were as often as not not taught how to cook, sew, garden,
decorate, or clean. Their daughters’ and sons’ generation –
roughly that of the baby boomers – capture our imagina-
tion because it is the fi rst generation who in a fundamental
sense does not know how to take care of themselves and
who apparently seriously adopted the belief that a good-
paying job would do.
21
Where full meals used to be made by scratch from
numerous ingredients, there are now ready-made
meals and ‘ cook-in ’ sauces available. Where clothes
were darned, patched and altered and appliances
repaired, it is often easier, cheaper or more effi cient
to replace them with new, updated or more fashion-
able versions. The economics of global-scale mass
production have put fi rst world consumers in the
position where necessities such as cooked food,
clothes and furniture can often be purchased for less
than it would cost to purchase the raw materials to
produce them themselves — even if they did possess
the relevant skills to do so. In these circumstances it is
no surprise that DIY today is often not seen to be a
necessity of any kind, and can only make sense if it is
seen instead as a leisure pursuit or lifestyle choice.
The appearance of a number of popular British tele-
vision programmes over the last decade or so, pre-
senting the constant makeover of interiors and gardens
as an essential aspect of modern living and combining
DIY labour with bought-in help and expert advice
bears testament to this and reinforces the perception
of DIY as no longer an end in itself, but of secondary
importance to a necessarily ephemeral end result.
DIY as democracy
Taking all the above into account, the question arises
as to how, and in which ways have these various
facets of DIY activity acted as a democratizing
agency. This has occurred in a number of ways:
giving people independence and self-reliance, free-
dom from professional help, encouraging the wider
Paul Atkinson
6
dissemination and adoption of modernist design
principles, providing an opportunity to create more
personal meaning in their own environments or self-
identity, and opening up previously gendered or
class-bound activities to all.
In his analysis of DIY as a hobby, Gelber claimed
that hobbies allowed people to perform ‘ the perfect
job ’ : ‘ Hobbies do indeed seem to embody almost
every positive element of work … . Workers enjoy
jobs that allow them to create something, permit
them to use a skill, give them the opportunity to
work wholeheartedly, and let them exercise initiative
and responsibility ’ .
22
In this respect, any DIY activity
can be seen as a democratization of the work process,
allowing decision-making and freedom from supervi-
sion at levels unlikely to be available at work itself.
Jackson addresses this aspect in his article, relating
the enjoyment of making the dinghy to increased
enjoyment when partaking in the sport of sailing.
Over and above providing freedom from
super vision, DIY has been able to provide fi nancial
independence to a greater or lesser extent. The
Practical Man’s Book of Things to Make and Do began by
stating that
The man who can use tools properly is to be envied, for
the fi eld in which he can exercise his ability and skill is
practically unlimited. He need never be bored for lack of
some thing to do … . And not only does such employment
occupy spare time in a pleasant manner and satisfy the
natural instinct to create something with one ’ s own hands,
but it is possible to make such recreations pay for
themselves.
23
In the accompanying articles, Edwards and Hackney
both comment on the abil ity of women to extend
home-making budgets and earn independent income
through proactive and re active DIY activity.
As well as promoting self-suffi ciency on a func-
tional and economic level, DIY also allowed people
from a range of backgrounds, living in housing stock
of various ages to engage with modernist design prin-
ciples without employing expensive architectural
advisors. Corbusian ideas concerning a healthier,
more hygienic environment arising from the elimina-
tion of dust traps and the effi cient maintenance of
high standards of cleanliness were achieved as early as
the 1920s through the straightforward covering of
door panels and the boxing in of stair balustrades with
plywood and later hardboard imported from
Scandinavia. Instructions for achieving the unclut-
tered lines of the modern interior through such con-
cealment appeared in a number of handyman’s guide
books of the time,
24
and were present in advice
manuals for many years after. Writing on the same
phenomenon in the mid 1950s, Raphael Samuel
wrote ‘ home improvement was largely a matter of
making surfaces seamless ’ .
25
Another way in which DIY acted as a democratiz-
ing agency was to release people from the grip of pro-
fessional tradesmen and skilled artisans. David
Johnson, founder of Do-It-Yourself magazine, attrib-
uted the boom in DIY in the 1950s to technological
developments allowing new materials and tools suit-
able for non-professional use to be readily available.
As early as the start of the nineteenth century, ready-
mixed paint in cans available to the ‘ common person ’
26
was seen as ‘ a menace threatening the business of oil
and colour merchants ’
27
— a threat to professionals
which increased exponentially in the 1950s with the
introduction of emulsion paint and the paint roller,
and the move to sell wallpaper through retail out-
lets.
28
Coupled with the development of the electric
drill with a variety of attachments,
29
these advances
allowed anyone to achieve suitably impressive results
in interior design and decoration without the em -
ployment of professional help.
30
Many companies
which had previously only supplied industry moved
to selling direct to the public, with some even hold-
ing clinics in DIY advice.
31
The provision of such
advice even went as far as the creation in the UK of
the National Self Build Association (NSBA) provid-
ing guidance to people wishing to build a complete
home from scratch.
32
The dissemination of this
democratization of skill through the press and DIY
magazines did not go unchallenged by the professions
under threat. Johnson recounts letters to Do-it-Yourself
magazine from professional tradesmen accusing the
publication of ‘ taking the bread and butter out of
their mouths ’
33
and that the Registered Plumbers
Association attempted to get a bill through Parliament
to prevent non-professionals doing as much as chang-
ing a tap washer. The Electrical Development
Associations and even the Home Offi ce complained
about how dangerous it was to publish articles on
home electrical repairs. Developments in technology
have been a key element of the case studies presented
in both Jackson’s and Lichtman’s articles — in particu-
lar the development of the electric drill, which
Do It Yourself: Democracy and Design
7
enabled many processes to be undertaken by the
householder for the fi rst time. The level of work
necessary to build a fallout shelter would have been
far greater without the use of power tools, and the
production of a dinghy at home would have been
almost impossible without developments in materials
such as plywood, resins and glues. Even in Triggs’
article, the easier reproduction and dissemination of
fanzines, with the associated lack of censorship from
editors, publishers or retailers, was only achieved
through the large scale take-up of photocopiers.
34
Self-identity
The role of DIY activity in the creation and mainten-
ance of self-identity is clearly an important one, and is
not unconnected to the issue of design democracy.
After all, if there were no element of democracy
available, no choice to engage in the creative process,
then the freedom to develop self-identity might be
severely limited. The creative elements of all DIY,
whether truly original design work in proactive
DIY, or the creative production of mediated design
practices in reactive DIY, enhance people’s notion of
themselves as an agent of design rather than merely a
passive consumer.
The involvement in the creation of goods in order
to derive personal meaning has become increasingly
important to many in an age of mass-consumption. In
‘ The Aesthetics of Social Aspiration ’ , Alison Clarke
commented that many academics had seen the British
boom in home improvement of the 1980s as associ-
ated ‘ with the broader conservatism and materialism
of Thatcherite politics ’ .
35
The home improvements
she discusses cover all aspects of advice magazines and
television programmes that grew in popularity
throughout the 1990s, and are seen as an ‘ ethno-
graphic example [which] shows how the ideal home,
as used to infl uence the construction of the actual
home, becomes an internalized vision of what other
people might think of one ’ .
36
It is, therefore, more
imperative than ever for many to engage in consump-
tion of this order. Don Slater’s book Consumer Culture
and Modernity
37
describes in detail the extent to which
self-identity is now a function of such consumption.
In this respect, DIY (even if it is merely an assemblage
of components) provides a means of partaking in con-
sumer culture and its associated status while perhaps
allowing the consumer to achieve a more individual
sense of self. Edwards’ and Hackney’s articles address
this very issue, how women’s activities in home-
making involved self-expression and the creation of
personal meaning. Taking this further, Lichtman’s
article refers to the building of a fallout shelter as
making the home a ‘ psychological fortress ’ . An
extreme example, taking the construction of posses-
sions and self- identity to perhaps the greatest extent,
Roni Brown’s study of self-build homes led her to
fi nd that ‘ these homes are primarily places of narrativ-
ity where the meaning of home is established through
a complex set of material and human relationships ’ .
38
Her conclusion, that ‘ the act of self-building (as a
complex, creative and risky process) amplifi es the
meaning of home as dwelling place because it forms
a signifi cant causal link in the life-stories of those
involved ’
39
highlights the potential of involvement in
the creative process to reinforce notions of the self.
Finally, a number of the key texts mentioned above,
and some of the articles in this issue, have considered
DIY as a means of asserting a masculine identity in a
changing or uncertain world; yet it has also been pre-
sented as a bonding activity for couples and families,
and one which acted to open up stereotypically gen-
dered roles to others. The frontispiece to The Practical
Man’s Book of Things to Make and Do [ 1 ] shows a family
together, each busy with their own DIY task, while in
a section titled ‘ All the family can help ’ the 1946 book
Man About the House stated ‘ Although this book is
called ‘ Man About the House ’ many of the jobs
described in it can be done by the woman about the
house and some of them by children ’ .
40
During the
post-war boom in DIY in the USA, one anthro-
pologist wrote ‘ The do it yourself movement is not
just a hobby. It is often a pleasant and meaningful
contribution to family life ’
.41 And Time magazine in
1954 stated ‘ For many Americans, do it yourself
makes possible luxuries that once existed only in their
dreams. … Like many others [a certain retired
couple] have found a new source of happy compan-
ionship in doing tasks together ’ .
42
The commentary
of the aforementioned TV series ‘All Mod Cons’
stated that ‘ DIY had become an essential part of the
modern marriage … a cosy combination of love and
labour ’ .
43
In Putting on the Style , Sally MacDonald
and Julia Porter state that advertisers made assump-
tions about domestic roles, assuming that men did
decorating and DIY and worked with hard materials
while women worked with textiles, whereas in
fact couples often worked together.
44
Penny Sparke
Paul Atkinson
8
also stated that ‘ togetherness ’ was the dominant
represented theme of post-war domesticity:
The “ do-it-yourself ” movement was to be engaged in by
both partners … . While it was up to the husband to fi x the
plumbing and electrics, the wife would make the curtains,
and while the husband went up the ladder to paint the
ceiling, her role was to support it at its base, a perfect meta-
phor for the relationship between the sexes.
45
In fact, the popular representation of home main-
tenance as a largely masculine undertaking was under-
mined following the Second World War. Wallpapering
in particular was presented as a feminine role, with
teenage girls being used to demonstrate how easy it
was to paper a room in 1950s DIY exhibitions.
46
Women were not just decorating either — the obitu-
ary of TV DIY expert Barry Bucknell claimed he was
a ‘ DIY hero to postwar women ’ and ‘ helped women
prove that they could cope with household repairs as
well as men could ’ .
47
Angela Partington’s view was
that ‘ there was a strong emphasis on do-it-yourself
[in the 1950s], which was in some ways a continua-
tion of the “ make do and mend ” war years, and this
tended to demystify professional design as a kind of
glorifi ed homemaking ’ .
48
Goldstein commented that
in the USA, the represen tation of the role of women
in DIY changed from a supporting one carrying out
light duties to one where women dealt with con-
struction projects throughout the 1950s and 1960s,
but the serious input of women in DIY was not really
made explicit until the 1970s.
49
These types of normative or stereotyped gender
roles are also examined in Edwards’ article, as he
discusses the received notions of the period — a dis-
tinction between the binary opposites of male/female,
professional/amateur, the workplace and the home.
For both Edwards and Hackney, proactive and reac-
tive DIY activity was a means of playing out power
relationships within the domestic sphere, and
Hackney, like Goldstein, points to a disparity between
the reality and the representation of women as having
an active rather than a passive role. Jackson, Lichtman
and Hackney all discuss the role of essential and
lifestyle DIY in assuaging a ‘ post-war crisis of mas-
culinity ’ in both Britain and the USA when the
seemingly paradoxical notions of manliness and do -
mesticity were brought together. In some ways,
there was perhaps a need to promote earlier stereo-
typed roles of the male as protector and provider and
the female as homemaker and housekeeper, although,
as Jackson and Lichtman both reveal, it was the
relationship between father and son, damaged heavily
by the separation of war, which benefited most
from the popularity of Do It Yourself.
Conclusions
The articles in this special issue together cover a
period of some three centuries, and appear in roughly
chronological order, although inevitably an amount
of overlap occurs. The focus of Edwards’ article cov-
ers a period from the early eighteenth century to the
late nineteenth century, Hackney’s the 1920s and
1930s, Lichtman’s the 1950s and 1960s, Jackson’s the
1960s and Triggs’ the 1970s. This is not a purposeful
attempt to chart or construct a linear, developmental
history of Do It Yourself, but it does provide, at least,
Fig 1. Frontispiece to The Practical Man’s Book of Things to
Make and Do, Odhams Press, 1935
Do It Yourself: Democracy and Design
9
some indication of how the concept of DIY has been
variously received over time.
It is interesting, too, that so many of the same issues
are addressed by each author. Throughout, issues of
emulation, class and taste are discussed, as are similar
economic and social factors. What is of more interest
here though, is how each article demonstrates differ-
ent ways in which all forms of DIY have enabled the
consumer to rail against the prescribed design edicts,
and indeed, prescribed social mores of the time.
Moreover, as these articles expose, DIY can be seen as
the ultimate expression of individual taste, and there-
fore as an accurate yardstick by which the popular aes-
thetics of design can be measured. Whether seen to be
conspicuous consumption, emulation, self preserva-
tion or self-expression, DIY remains very clearly an
intrinsic part of the material culture of everyday life.
Paul Atkinson
University of Huddersfi eld
Notes
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the contributors
to this special issue for their input and cooperation. My thanks also
go to my research assistant on this project, Colin Montgomery, for
his considerable efforts in sourcing relevant material for this
introductory piece.
1 See Judy Attfi eld’s work on DIY in Wild Things: The Material
Culture of Everyday Life ; Stephen M Gelber’s work on leisure
in Hobbies: Leisure and the Culture of Work in America ; Carolyn
Goldstein’s Do It Yourself: Home Improvement in 20th-century
America and Penny Sparke’s As Long As It’s Pink: The Sexual
Politics of Taste.
2 Oral testimony on people entertaining in order to show off,
fuelling a ‘ keep up with the Jones ’ approach in J. Dent, (Dir)
‘ The DIY Pioneers ’ , part one of ‘All Mod Cons.’ First broadcast
21 July 1997 , BBC2.
3 G. Lees-Maffei & L. Sandino, (ed) ( 2004 ) ‘ Dangerous Liaisons:
Relationships Between Design, Craft and Art ’ , Journal of Design
History , vol. 17 no. 3.
4 P. Greenhalgh, ‘ The History of Craft ’ , in P. Dormer ( 1997 )
The Culture of Craft , Manchester University Press, p. 21.
5 S. Johnson ( 1773 ) A Dictionary of the English Language, cited in
Greenhalgh, op. cit., p. 22.
6 J. Dent, op. cit.
7 S. M. Gelber ( 1999 ) Hobbies: Leisure and the Culture of Work in
America , Columbia University Press, p. 4.
8 Ibid, p. 2.
9 Ibid, p. 28.
10 J. Walvin, ‘ Children ’ s Pleasures’ in J. K. Walton & J. Walvin
(eds.) ( 1983 ) Leisure in Britain 1780 – 1939 , Manchester Uni-
versity Press, pp. 228 – 241. Between 1801 and 1914, census
returns show that children under 14 formed one third of the
population of Great Britain, and between 1841 to 1901, the
number of children almost doubled to 10 million. (Walton &
Walvin p. 228.)
11 Ibid.
12 Anon, ‘ The New Poor – Making the Best of It ’ in The Times,
May 11, 1920 p. 19.
13 Sir Thomas Barlow, Director of Civilian Clothing writing in
Harper’s Bazaar, cited in McDowell, C ( 1997 ) Forties Fashion
and the New Look , Bloomsbury, p. 93.
14 J. Dent, op. cit.
15 P. Hunot ( 1946 ) Man About the House , Pilot Press, p. 13.
16 C. M. Goldstein ( 1998 ) Do It Yourself: Home Improvement in
20th-century America , Princeton Architectural Press, p. 31.
17 Commentary in ‘Demob Happy’, one of The Lost Decade series
of television programmes. First broadcast 30 Oct 2005 ,
BBC4.
18 J. Dent, op. cit.
19 J. E. Wheeler ( 1935 ) The Practical Man’s Book of Things to Make
and Do , Odhams Press Ltd., pp. 5 – 6.
20 P. Dalton, ‘ Housewives, Leisure Crafts and Ideology:
De-skilling in Consumer Craft ’ in G. Elinor et al. (eds.) ( 1987 )
Women and Craft , Virago Press, p. 32.
21 J. McCracken ( 2001 ) Taste and the Household: The Domestic
Aesthetic and Moral Reasoning , State University of New York
Press, p. 261.
22 S. M. Gelber, op. cit., p. 33.
23 J. E. Wheeler op. cit ., p. 3.
24 For an in-depth account of this phenomenon see C. Brooks,
‘ The Amateur Mechanic and the Modern Movement ’ in
Conference on Twentieth Century Design History ( 1977 ) Leisure
in the Twentieth Century, Design Council Publications,
pp. 24 – 31, and also J. Dent, op. cit.
25 R. Samuel ( 1994 ) Theatres of Memory, Vol. 1: Past and Present in
Contemporary Culture , Verso, p. 52.
26 Boswell, cited in D. Johnson, ‘ The History and Development
of Do-It-Yourself ’ in Conference on Twentieth Century Design
History op. cit., p. 68.
27 Ibid.
28 A 1954 article in Time magazine discussed the range of new
tools and materials fuelling the DIY boom, including ready
glued wallpaper, rollers with paint reservoirs, spray paint and
plastic tiles. (Anon, ‘ The Shoulder Trade ’ in Time magazine,
Aug 2, 1954.)
29 Apparently, Black & Decker had an early success with a drill for
home use after noticing staff borrowed industrial drills to do
maintenance jobs around the home. (Goldstein, op. cit., p. 49).
30 In 1954 , it was reported that 70% of wallpapers were sold
through retail outlets: ‘ a statement of some sociological
signifi cance that ought to be of particular interest to the
professional decorators ’ (Anon, ‘ “ Do It Yourself ” Display —
Hints for Handymen in the Home ’ in The Times , Sep 10,
1954 p. 10) while in 1957, the Housing Committee of St.
Marylebone Council recommended paying tenants for DIY
decorating work to save costs — causing a protest from the
National Society of Painters (Anon, ‘ Do It Yourself Pay -
ments ’ in The Times , Feb 18, 1957 p. 5).
31 Anon, ‘ Do-It-Yourself is Big Business ’ in New York Times ,
Jun 10, 1956 .
Paul Atkinson
10
32 For example, see B. Phillips, ‘ Help for Do-It-Yourself Builders ’
in The Times , May 25, 1983 p. 27. However, the notion of
self building of properties was by no means a new one — ‘ in
England the fi rst Building Societies were set up as mutual
self help societies in the 18th Century to provide fi nance for
self builders. Once homes were completed the societies
were closed down and were, therefore, known as “ terminat ing
building societies ” . ’ (M. Daligan, Walter Segal Self Build
Trust ( http://www.mondodesigno.com/segal.html accessed
5 Oct 2005).
33 D. Johnson, op. cit., p. 70.
34 As Triggs mentions, prior to the availability of photocopiers,
science fi ction and comic fanzines were produced on Gestetner
duplicators. Even though the photocopier was invented as early
as 1938 by Chester Carlson, the fi rst available machine did not
appear until 1959. It became widely adopted by business in the
early 1970s when cost reductions in technology allowed a
number of competitors to enter the fi eld. See www.xerox.com
and www.InventHelp.com/Chester-Carlson-and-the-Inven-
tion-of-the-Photocopier.asp (both accessed 13 Oct 2005).
35 A. J. Clarke, ‘ The Aesthetics of Social Aspiration ’ in Miller, D.
(ed.) ( 2001 ) Home Possessions: Material Culture Behind Closed
Doors , Berg, p. 23.
36 Ibid, p. 42.
37 D. Slater ( 1997 ) Consumer Culture and Modernity , Polity Press.
38 R. Brown ( 2005 ) ‘ Narrativity in Home Design and Home-
Making: The Personally Derived Space ’ , unpublished conference
paper presented at Locating Design , Design History Society
Conference, London Metropolitan University, September 2005.
39 Ibid.
40 P. Hunot, op. cit., p. 15.
41 Margaret Mead cited in S. M. Gelber, op. cit., p. 268.
42 Anon, ‘ The Shoulder Trade ’ in Time magazine, Aug 2, 1954 .
43 J. Dent, op. cit.
44 S. MacDonald, & J. Porter ( 1990 ) Putting on the Style: Setting
Up Home in the 1950s , The Geffrye Museum. David
Attenborough and Simon Vaughn also commented on ex-
pected gender roles, and discussed the fact that during the
Second World War it was common for men, especially sailors,
to knit in their spare time (‘Demob Happy’, one of The
Lost Decade series of television programmes. First broadcast
30 Oct 2005, BBC4).
45 P. Sparke ( 1995 ) As Long As It’s Pink: The Sexual Politics of
Taste , Harper Collins, p. 171.
46 Anon, ‘ “ Do It Yourself ” Display – Hints for Handymen in the
Home ’ in The Times , Sep 10, 1954 p. 10. See also D. Johnson,
op. cit., p. 69.
47 D. Barker ‘ Barry Bucknell: DIY Hero to Postwar Women ’ in
The Guardian , Feb. 27, 2003 .
48 A. Partington ‘ The Designer Housewife in the 1950s ’ in
J. Attfi eld & P. Kirkham (eds.) ( 1989 ) A View from the Interior:
Feminism, Women and Design , The Women’s Press, p. 211.
49 Goldstein, op. cit., pp. 67 – 82.
